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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29865042">til everything is dead and born and grown</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories'>ThunderstormsandMemories</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>15 days of fatt 2021 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Friends at the Table (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>15 Days of FatT, 15 Days of FatT 2021, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic, Gen, Other, background pre-relationship milli/broun, mentioned previous balence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:14:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,687</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29865042</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>after leaving Partizan behind, the crew of the Blue Channel settle down and make new lives for themselves. Thisbe gardens, Milli helps her, and Broun adapts</p><p>OR,<br/>“What would you do,” Broun had said, “if you could be anywhere else but here?”<br/>“Sleep, probably,” Milli said. “Yeah, if I weren’t in this shitty- sorry, really cool bar I would probably go to bed.”<br/>“No, I meant, like, in general,” said Broun.<br/>"I knew what you meant,” said Milli. She sighed deeply, paused for a moment, and took a sip of her beer that left a dot of foam on the tip of her nose. “I think I would want to have a garden, you know? Do the exact opposite of what I’ve been doing my whole life.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kal'mera Broun &amp; Thisbe &amp; Ver'million Blue, Minor or Background Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>15 days of fatt 2021 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195682</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>til everything is dead and born and grown</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for a combination of two prompts from 15 Days of Friends at the Table 2021 (sanctuary &amp; letters)</p><p>Diverges from canon partway through PZN 41 so potential spoilers up to that point (nothing specific about the events of that arc, just 'what if they'd made a different decision at the end')</p><p>Contains mild spoilers, vague discussions of canon character death, and alcohol consumption</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Broun was putting their finishing touches on a report to Jesset, carefully encoded, written on paper sturdy enough to withstand the journey but fragile enough to be easily destroyed if necessary, when Milli and Thisbe came in from the garden.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was colder on this side of the planet than any of them had expected, even Thisbe, who’d lived here before, and Milli refused to risk getting dirt on her best or even her second best leather jacket, so she was shivering in her tank top as she came inside. “I would have offered you a jacket,” Thisbe was saying, “but I do not feel the cold so I don’t own any. Also, any clothing that fits me would definitely not fit you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks,” said Milli dryly, reaching up to pat Thisbe on the shoulder, goosebumps prickling along her arms in between her scales, and Broun set down their letter and started putting the kettle on to boil water for hot cocoa. While Milli washed the dirt from her hands and wrapped herself in her second best jacket, the one with the rough, hand-embroidered broken spear of Millenium Break over the heart (she’d done the sewing herself, and Broun had been a little bit surprised by her skill and dexterity, though they supposed stitching up simple wounds and mending clothes were practical skills for a soldier to have), Thisbe picked up the report to Jesset and started adding her own commentary on how well their crops were growing. She even corrected a few of Broun’s estimations, but that was fine. She was the expert, and Broun wasn’t even too proud to admit it anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A perfectly satisfactory report,” said Thisbe, setting down Broun’s pen. It was too small for Thisbe’s hands, like something made for a doll, but Thisbe’s handwriting was impeccable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Glad you think so,” they said. “Hopefully Jesset will agree.” They hadn’t parted on the best of terms, but Broun still valued his opinion, begrudgingly, and his support had been vital to the survival of their little outpost, built up around the foundations of the old farmhouse that had sat on the land when they bought it. It wasn’t quite a town, and Broun shuddered at the thought of belonging to anything as inclusive as a community, but besides the folks from the Blue Channel, they’d been joined by a few other families, living in an interconnected set of buildings clustered around a series of gardens, and a sort of public lawn where they had thought to gather to discuss dangerous revolutionary ideas, if the weather has cooperated. As it was, they usually crammed into one of the larger kitchens when they had something to discuss. Avar would make soup, Si’dra would take notes in incomprehensible Apostolosian communications corps shorthand while Milli doodled in the margins of si’s notebook, Thisbe would hold the children on her lap to keep them quiet and entertained, and Broun would usually run in late, grease smears across their forehead, having lost track of time in their workshop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s gotta,” said Milli, from the doorway. “We’ve been working our asses off over here, and sure, it’s not as glamorous as shooting down Principality Divines but you can’t do that every day. You’d run out of Divines, for one thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you’d run out of food,” Thisbe pointed out sensibly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, yeah, that too,” Milli said. “Gotta say, I never really saw myself as a farmer, but here we are.” That wasn’t entirely the truth, Broun knew. Milli had confessed as much to Broun late one night, shortly before they’d all been forced to abandon Fort Icebreaker. A group of them had gone for drinks at the Deepdish Steakhouse but everyone else had gone home early, citing drills to run first thing in the morning, but Broun followed their own schedule and no one else’s, and Milli stayed with them deep into the night, alternating paying for rounds of the nearly-flavorless local beer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What would you do,” Broun had said, “if you could be anywhere else but here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sleep, probably,” Milli said. “Yeah, if I weren’t in this shitty- sorry, really cool bar I would probably go to bed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I meant, like, in general,” said Broun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I knew what you meant,” said Milli. She sighed deeply, paused for a moment, and took a sip of her beer that left a dot of foam on the tip of her nose. “I think I would want to have a garden, you know? Do the exact opposite of what I’ve been doing my whole life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh,” said Broun, who hadn’t really gotten around to thinking about what their own answer would be. They didn’t know who they would be, outside the framework of the life they’d made for themself, the comfortably distant network of contacts, the knowledge that their skills would always be sought after, if not necessarily through legal channels, and the confidence that they would always be able to deliver the product. They wanted out, obviously, but who wouldn’t, given the option? And the thing about defining themself by something so impossible as leaving it all behind was that they never had to figure out where they were going. Until recently, it hadn’t even been on the table. The only thing they knew they wanted was </span>
  <em>
    <span>not this</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and they didn’t let themself think too hard about whether that dissatisfaction would just follow them wherever they went until they figured out what it was they really wanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They thought they were getting close, sometimes, with Valence, but just look how that had turned out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Milli continued, “I know it probably sounds kinda silly, like, what does a cloned ex-child soldier know about farming, but I’ve been helping Thisbe with some of the hydroponics stuff, when I have an afternoon off, and it’s nice. Relaxing, you know?” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Relaxed</span>
  </em>
  <span> was not a word Broun would apply to Milli under normal circumstances, but she seemed relaxed then, smile wide and unguarded above her glass, lounging back in her seat, one elbow slung onto the bar, like it was a chaise longue and not a bar stool.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She seemed pretty relaxed now, too, most days. There was dirt under her black-painted nails more often than not, and for all her complaints about that, she smiled more than she ever had on Partizan. She still wore lipstick, red so dark it was almost black like a bloody wound across her face, and sometimes Broun thought about kissing those lips until the color smudged onto their own mouth. They hadn’t, yet, hadn’t even brought it up, not even when they were both pleasantly tipsy on Eiden’s experimental home-brewed mead at the end of a long day testing prototypes in Broun’s workshop, where no one else was likely to interrupt them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Part of it was Valence, of course. Valence’s absence clung to just about everything Broun did like a layer of dust that no amount of vacuuming could clean. Just as ubiquitous, and just as likely to make their eyes unexpectedly, inconveniently itchy. But part of it was that Broun had found themself relaxing too, and they were reluctant to do anything that might upset the comfortable balance they’d found here. They had Milli’s company and her support, and they didn’t need to go ruining everything by also wanting her affection or whatever. They didn’t need Milli to kiss them. They were fine. Everything was fine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kettle hissed, jolting Broun out of their stupid, pointless thoughts. Milli and Thisbe were still bickering fondly about the logistics of feeding a revolution, and Broun busied themself selecting mugs for everyone’s drinks. Their own favorite mug, the one with the sturdiest base and no handles that could break off and make a mess, was in their workshop, but their second favorite, a souvenir from a tacky tourist shop in Obelle, was clean and in the cupboard and the perfect size for a nice cup of tea. Most of Milli’s favorite mugs disappeared to her room, never to be seen again until she brought the whole batch back to the kitchen at once to wash them, but Ryrira had recently gotten into pottery and gifted Milli a nice tall mug that was the perfect size and shape for hot chocolate. Thisbe’s favorite mug was the size and shape of a large soup bowl, and no one else used it because of how heavy it was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Broun filled the mugs with everyone’s drink of choice without needing to ask: a tea bag for themself, black and caffeinated and tasting faintly of gunpowder; a scoop of hot chocolate powder for Milli, salted caramel flavor, with a generous handful of marshmallows and a pinch of milk powder in lieu of actual milk, since the real thing was almost impossible to get unless you had a cow, which no one on the base did; and nothing but hot water for Thisbe, who didn’t consume beverages but liked the feeling of holding a warm mug in her hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They handed around the drinks, ignoring the heat in their cheeks as Milli’s fingers brushed theirs. Milli’s hands were still callused from a lifetime of holding a rifle, but recently her blisters from holding a shovel in unfamiliar hands had settled into a different pattern of calluses belonging to a different sort of life. Broun thought it suited her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> Thisbe sighed contentedly, cupping her mug in her hands as carefully as if she was holding a small animal, and Milli, whose teeth had finally stopped chattering, slurped at her hot cocoa, leaving a dark lipstick stain on the rim of the mug. Broun’s tea was still steeping, so they took a moment to look over their report one last time before folding it up and setting it by the door to be taken to Si’dra in the morning so that si could send it on its way. Before they did, they added one more line, probably too sentimental for an official report, and definitely sappier than they were capable of saying out loud, but it was the truth: </span>
  <em>
    <span>this is a good place to make a home.</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title from Dead &amp; Born &amp; Grown by The Staves</p><p>For my own peace of mind I want to clarify that in this AU there was no big final confrontation that they had to rush back for, they didn't abandon everyone on Partizan to die, it's fine, everyone is fine</p><p>Come say hi on <a href="https://twitter.com/s_artemisios">twitter</a> where right now I'm mostly in season 7 hype mode but I still care very much about the Partizan crew</p></blockquote></div></div>
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